Veggies on the Menu
I detest grocery shopping for so many good reasons. The biggest one is that it implies I will come home and cook. Which, until Covid, I had resisted more and more. I would put a bag of lettuce into my cart, move it to the conveyor belt, bag it, put that bag back in the cart, then move it to the trunk of my car, then to my kitchen counter, then into the crisper drawer for ten days and then it went into the trash.
A shameful exercise in tedium, waste.
Last fall, when we talked about a garden at the farm, I would get defeatist and negative. I’d worry that the exact same pattern will emerge, only with seeds. They go in the tray… they go into the ground… they go into the rabbit’s mouth.
More tedium and waste.
But everything has changed, hasn’t it. Now, grocery shopping is both disconcerting and inspiring. The oddly empty shelves have helped us realize the mission of the farm property. We need to grow vegetables. We want a big-ass garden.
The farm’s current infrastructure works nicely for vegetables with seven hoop houses and a glass house. We have a couple plots of relatively empty land. We have a son who has left the apple orchard he managed and is itching to plant. And we’ve given him the go-ahead. The rows and rows of little seedlings inside the glass house resemble a battalion on a parade field.
Spring is sounding the trumpets and soon we will march those little green soldiers into battle against potato leaf hoppers, caterpillars, slugs, fungus gnats, cucumber beetles, rabbits, and the Gatling gun of pests, the white-tailed deer. But before we do, we’re going to fortify. A fence surrounding the garden area is top priority.
I love hardscaping in a garden. Dry-stacked stone or faded red brick would make a lovely foundation for the vegetable garden, but we don’t have the time, and I worry those elements, besides being costly, could lend too much of what I call a Colonel-Mustard-in-the-conservatory vibe. In other words, too fancy and too Victorian.
The space we’ve mapped out measures roughly 60’ x 60’. I’ve been scouring the internet for inspiration so that we can finalize our plans. Here are some ideas that we are considering. I welcome your suggestions! Thrill me with tales of failure and success, if you have them. They’ll go into my file labeled “Playing Lottery with Plants.”
A simple western-style slatted fence with a metal-staked layer of hogwire. Photo above of Greyfield Inn by Gabriel Hanway.
This diamond-patterned fence surrounds a garden designed by Lisa Bynon. She backed the cedar with heavy gauge chicken wire, which is also sunk into the ground two feet.
Event planner Keith Robinson’s Atlanta vegetable garden is protected by a rustic cedar and willow fence in a grid pattern. Photo by Nick Burchell,
I love how steampunky cool these steel containers look. they’re made by Rooted Garden. But the tall fence behind it feels too suburban for a country farm.
Bunny Williams sandwiched her vegetable garden between a board and batten barn and a greenhouse. I believe she burns damp $5 bills to keep the pests at bay.
The minimalist potting shed in the center of this garden is so arrestingly lovely, you don’t notice the rather quick and dirty fencing surrounding it. Photo by David Tsay.
Nancy McCabe designed this romantic fence, which, I’ll admit, is what I’d like to copy. I’m guessing with a nice supply of saplings and posts in natural black locust, I could get it hammered together before Biden begins his second turn.
This is the stunning vegetable garden at Brooke Giannetti’s Patina Farm in California. A very low tech fence that is easy to overlook in that beautiful setting.
Designer Charlotte Moss built a living fence of espaliered trees on twig trellises. I don’t think this deters deer. In fact, it’s more like serving soup in a bread bowl. Everything is edible and on the menu.
Thank you for joining me this week. We really don’t know what we’re doing but as we lurch our way forward, it’s nice to know that even the mistakes will make for good blog material.